Personal Space
by Klee Wyck
Summary: Six inches of personal working space. At all times. No problem. GSR. Season 7.


**Title:** Personal SpaceAuthor: Klee Wyck  
**Pairing:** GSR  
**Spoilers:** Season 7  
**Rating: **M  
**Disclaimer: **Mine? No.  
**Summary:** Six inches of personal working space. At all times. No problem.

**A/N: **So, I'm putting the angst away in its own little specially made angst box, for the time being at least.  
Oh, and this is about as close to writing smut as I'll ever get. So. Yeah.

* * *

**I. How to Touch Your Co-worker and Not Get Slapped With a Sexual Harassment Suit. **

Six inches.

They had agreed on a personal working space of six inches at all times, whenever possible.

They lay in bed late one Sunday night, pressed shoulder to shoulder and palm to palm, fingers entwined, discussing the best methods of camouflaging their burgeoning relationship from the very people trained in the fine art of unearthing secrets and lies.

"No flirting," Grissom said.

"You or me?" she said and he rolled his eyes.

"You, obviously," he said and she laughed, because the thought of him flirting with her at work was truly amusing. "No inside jokes."

"Or sexual innuendos," she said and he laughed because the thought of referencing any part of Sara's body, or what he'd like to do with it, in front of Warrick or Catherine or, God forbid, Greg, bordered on the surreal.

"No meaningful eye contact," he said, thinking of her eyes and how stupidly easy it was for him to lose his train of thought when she pinned him in their gaze.

"No eye contact at _all_," she amended, thinking of how his brilliant-blue gaze rendered her, at times, speechless and rather trembly kneed. Not good at all for someone attempting to keep up a professional appearance.

"No touching," he said. He knew what happened to him, knew physically and emotionally how touching her affected him, and it wouldn't do. Wouldn't do at _all_.

"Yeah," she said, nodding because on the very rare occasion he inadvertently placed a hand on her arm or back she had found breathing suddenly very difficult. "Yeah."

They thought about it. They were two logical people, and their plan seemed logical enough.

"All right, then," he said.

"Agreed?" she said.

"Agreed."

They shook on it. Then he kissed her hand. She grinned.

Six inches of personal working space. At all times. No problem.

"This will be _easy_."

* * *

_This sucks_, thought Grissom.

And it wasn't easy for him, at all. In fact, now that he knew he wasn't supposed to touch her, the desire to do just that ratcheted up a thousand fold and he was becoming almost obsessed with the thought.

Especially when other people got to touch her. All the time.

Greg bumping up against her in the lab and fumbling and mumbling some lame apology while he turned bright red. Grissom would have laughed out loud but he was too engrossed in watching Sara watching Greg, her expression a perfect blend of pity and amusement.

Nick, sliding a folder across the table, their fingers meeting, briefly.

Warrick tapping her on the shoulder, asking where she left the Thiessen file.

Brass taking her arm as she climbed up a particularly steep slope with all her gear.

Catherine leaning over to whisper something in the breakroom, her hand cupped against Sara's cheek, the two of them _laughing_.

Grissom's mouth went instantly dry.

Look, but don't touch.

_But, I _like _touching her_, he said to himself, watching her from across the lab as she pushed her hair back impatiently. Her _hair_. Damn. He knew how it felt, he knew how it smelled, he knew how it _felt_ when it draped across his chest when she bent low, low, bucking, arching—

_This is not fair. This is cruel and unusual punishment._

Must. Touch. Sara.

So, he devised ways to bend the rules.

Not break, he assured himself. Just…bend. Slightly. Because he realized he couldn't go all day without touching her. He just couldn't.

And so six inches became four, became two, and he hurled himself down the slippery slope headfirst.

Dangerous, to be sure, but what a ride.

In the layout room, pushing up against her, arm to arm, layers of clothing between them still, but close enough that he could feel the solidity of her flesh beneath. She looked at him, raised an eyebrow, shook her head slightly.

"Was I in your way?" she murmured.

"Oh, yes," he said.

"Sorry," she said, looking down, smiling.

"Don't be," he said before walking away.

During a meeting, as Catherine rambled on about something, he slid his foot over, slowly, quietly, until it nudged the toe of hers under the table. She'd been writing in her notebook and her head shot up. She frowned at Greg who was sitting across from her, but he remained oblivious. Then her gaze swung to Grissom, seated next to Greg and she smirked.

_What the hell are you doing?_ her eyes said. He shrugged, almost imperceptibly.

She didn't pull her foot away.

At a crime scene, sun beating down, drops of sweat gathering along her hairline. A limp, stray lock of hair in her eyes as she explained her findings. Without a second thought he reached out and pushed the hair away from her face, tucked it behind her ear. She stopped talking in mid-sentence, her mouth falling open slightly, but he'd been careful. He knew no one was watching. She closed her mouth and continued talking about fingerprints and epithelials, her voice catching in her throat just a bit.

Standing behind her as she climbed into the Denali he lay his hand on her back, let it linger for a second too long. He could feel the skin and muscles moving under his fingers and it made him long for her, but it was enough to get him through the remainder of the day.

A quick hand squeeze as she passed him the ALS.

Wiping a tear away as she regretted a decision made, hand on her lower back as he walked her out and took her home.

In the A/V lab, leaning forward to get a closer look at suspect, her hair brushing against his face, making him hard, just like that.

Just like that.

"You okay?" she asked, taking in his sudden pale demeanour, his sudden silence.

He shook his head.

"No." He slid his hand around her hip, carefully concealed beneath her lab coat, squeezed her slightly and shook his head again. "No, not really."

* * *

They lay in bed that night, her head on his chest, his hand playing with her hair. The air around them smelled like sex. Her breath tickled him, made him want her, again and again.

"Grissom," she said quietly.

"Yes?"

"This six inches of personal space at all time thing?"

"Yes?"

"Not working."

He smiled, kissed the top of her head, behind her ear, the corner of her mouth.

He knew.

He didn't care.

* * *

**II. How to Kiss your Supervisor and Not Get Written Up for Unprofessional Behaviour**

"Well," she said one Wednesday evening, her nose nuzzled in his neck. He smelled like soap and sweat. Sex sweat. "I guess we I can /I touch at work, if we're careful, right?"

"Definitely," Grissom agreed, his fingers making small circles on her stomach. "We can be very careful."

"Well, _I_ can," she grinned. "I'm starting to wonder about you."

"I have just as much, if not more, resolve than you do," he lied.

"Okay," she said. "New rule, then. No kissing at work."

"Well no," he said, frowning. "I mean, that doesn't even bear discussing."

"No, no," she agreed. "I mean, we'd never do _that_, right?"

"Well, I would hope _not_, he said, his hand sliding over her stomach, down, down. "Completely unprofessional."

She closed her eyes, sucked in breath, sucked in her lower lip. "Yes," she sighed as his fingers moved down, around, in, deeper and then his mouth found hers, devoured it.

_Completely_.

* * *

Gil Grissom didn't like surprises. Surprises annoyed him.

Sara kept surprising him.

_No kissing at work_, they had said. They'd agreed on it. He was sure of it.

And yet.

In the trace lab, leaning down, peering into the microscope. Without warning she leaned down too, quickly, kissed the nape of his neck, the soft, soft spot between his hair and his shirt.

"Oops," she said when he looked over, too stunned to utter a word.

Before she hopped out of the truck, leaning over to grab her vest she kissed his cheek, so quickly and lightly he wasn't sure he'd felt it. But he had because she grinned at him then, and winked.

_Winked_.

In the morgue — the morgue, for pity's sake — while they waited for Robbins to return from the _bathroom_. She gripped the edge of the table, leaned across the corpse, touched her lips to his, sweet and light as butterfly wings. Grissom jumped in surprise, stared at her.

"Don't worry," she said, glancing down. "He won't tell."

Her audacity stunned him.

And completely turned him on.

In the parking lot at the end of shift, hidden in the shadows, slow, lazy and full of promises of things to come.

"What are you trying to do?" he gasped out when she finally broke away and slid into her driver's side of her car. "Get caught?"

"Maybe," she said. "Kind of exciting, don't you think?" she added before she drove off.

Yes. Yes. It was.

He liked it.

He liked being caught off guard, liked being thrown for a loop.

He felt unbalanced and breathless, nervous and completely _alive_. God help him. He found himself looking forward to when and where she'd do it next. In the middle of a crime scene? The lab? The breakroom? His office?

The _hallway_?

He didn't want her to stop.

Ever.

Kissing at home was fine, well, much better than fine, but he was learning that this game she was playing, this game of stealing kisses at work appealed to his furtive nature, to his secret desire to let everyone know about their relationship, without actually having to say a word.

He was learning he liked being surprised, after all.

* * *

Late one Friday night, her head cradled in his lap, TV jabbering some mindless program but neither of them with the presence of mind to turn it off. His hand stroked her upper arm.

"Sara?" he said quietly.

"Yes?"

"This not kissing at work thing?"

"Yes?" She looked up, rolled onto her stomach. She smiled at him. Her hands slid down, over the waistband of his pants, caressing, massaging.

"Uh…" 

Her hands on his belt, his button, his waistband, pulling, tugging.

"It's…" he began but his voice didn't sound quite like his. "…not working."

"Really?" she murmured, smiling, her mouth suddenly and dangerously close to the tops of his bare highs.

"Yeah…" But then her lips found what they were looking for and he stopped talking.

She nodded. She knew. She didn't care.

And neither did he, actually.

* * *

**III. How to Have Sex in the Workplace and Not Get Caught. Almost.**

"Someone…sometime will find us out," she said on a Tuesday afternoon. She sat in front of him, on the floor. He sat behind her on the couch, his hands working out the knots in her neck.

"We're too sneaky," he said, but he knew she was right. He felt like it was written all over his face. He felt like the world's worst liar. He felt like every time he looked at her, smiled at her, thought about her, everyone could see, everyone could tell, but they just weren't letting on.

And he was starting to worry about it less and less.

Which should have worried him.

"So, kissing at work…as long as we're _very_ careful…is fine," she said.

"Well, I wouldn't say it's _fine_," he said. "It's…" _The world's best aphrodisiac,_ he thought.

"Hot?" she teased.

He said nothing, just pushed down harder on her neck.

"As long as we're…" he said.

"Careful. Yes. You worry too much."

_Someone has to_, he thought. But he smiled.

"All right then," he said working on a particularly large knot. "New rule. Kissing, yes. Sex, no."

She laughed, dipping her head low as his fingers pressed and rubbed, sliding up and down the back of her neck, into her hair, down over her shoulders.

"I hope you're joking."

"Well, it is a documented fact that 16 percent of American men and seven percent of American women have reported having sex in the office," he said as his hands suddenly moved down from her neck, down over her shoulders to the tops of her breasts. She was wearing a thin cotton T-shirt. No bra.

"Ah, but what percentage of those people get caught?"

"Not sure," he said, his hands slipping down, over, around, lightly caressing her breasts, feeling their fullness, feeling the nipples harden against his palms. "Should we find out?"

"Maybe."

* * *

By the night they were scheduled to work together, they hadn't had sex in nearly a week. But it wasn't just that fact that spurred him on. It was everything that had gone on for weeks and weeks before — the touching, the kissing, the surprises.

He was hooked on the danger.

Slippery slope, indeed.

They were in his office, 3:17 a.m. She was standing by his file cabinet, searching for a missing report. He watched her from the door, the way she stood, one hip pushed out slightly, brow furrowed, fingers shuffling through folders.

He closed the door behind him. He locked it. He pulled the blinds. All of them.

Almost.

"Are you sure it's in here?" she said, head bent over the papers. "I've gone through these twice. I don't know."

Silence.

"Grissom?" she said. No answer. "Gris?"

She turned and he was there, thighs, hips, shoulders, lips. She could feel his breath, warm, soft, on her cheek. It was dark, but not dark enough to completely camouflage raw desire.

"Uh…Gris…" she said.

"Yes?" He moved closer still, the small rustle of fabric against fabric. Her breasts touching his chest, his fingers on her hands, light, then tighter. She wondered if she could feel her knees, the slight tremor there, or the quickening pulse in the fine skin of her wrists.

"Personal space…" she said. It was very quiet in the room. She could hear little sounds: a clock ticking, the _whoosh_ of an air vent, her heart thudding, and his.

"Yes?" His hands slid up her forearms, cupped her elbows. He moved even closer, pushing her back, back, _back_ against the wall.

"You're invading it…" Hands at her waist then, slipping beneath the hem of her shirt and skimming across the pale skin there. "…a lot…"

Hands moving to her back, palms pressed flat against warm skin, up and up, finding bones and all the spaces in between. Then her breath sucked in because his mouth found her neck and the edge of her collarbone. Light kisses at first because he was still unsure and he still could, if he _had_ to, pull back and stop, but the point of no return was looming large, the point where touching her and kissing her wasn't going to be enough, the point where—

_"Gris_—" She bit the word out, harsh, because his hands had moved again, to her stomach, the sensitive skin there, and up again, over the sides of her breasts and then holding them, tentative and then not, his hands hot and trembling, and his mouth found her mouth _finally_ and his hips pushed against hers and there were too many _clothes_.

"_Sara_—" It was all he could say and all he could think. They stumbled and fumbled across the room to the couch and landed there, awkward and tangled, but hands still roaming and tugging and searching.

Buckles and buttons and the near frantic race to remove everything except skin. She wanted to feel his skin and they both wanted to be inside the other. He forgot where he was, for the first time in a long, long time, he was thinking only about her, _Sara_, and desire and lust and love and every emotion a scientist wasn't supposed to embrace because it threw his entire fucking world into a tailspin.

"_God_—" He bit out the word, harsh, because her mouth was on him, then he was inside her, _finally_, liquid, molten, and he had to hold back, back because he was that close already " _Sara_."

She could say nothing at all because her entire body might have been made from glass, ready to shatter at any moment.

And when she came she dug her fingers into his back, nails too short to make a mark, and bit down on his shoulder because she didn't make noise usually but _here_, in his office, she wanted to make sure, because she I could /I have, this time. And when he came he buried his face in her hair to muffle his cry and grabbed her hips and then squeezed her so tightly she _did_ cry out, just a little.

What they saw after: Pale light filtering through the office blinds, casting crazy-angled shadows on the floor.

"Forgot to close those," he said.

"Very observant," she said. "No one's here." She kissed him.

"Except us," he said.

"Again, very observant," she said, and he kissed her.

They dressed hurriedly, passing clothes back and forth, avoiding eye contact, smiling.

What they didn't see after: Brass, passing the office quickly, half hidden in shadows. Movement catching his eye, thinking _What the hell? _Then moving closer but staying in the shadows, watching them, dressing hurriedly, passing clothes back and forth, avoiding eye contact, smiling.

_What the_ hell?

* * *

Two hours later, side by side in bed, her nose in a book and her hand on his leg, Sara turned to him.

"This not having sex at work thing?"

He looked up from his journal, his fingers twined in her hair. "Yes?"

"Not working," she said.

He nodded.

"We'll never do it again," he said solemnly.

She laughed.

"Right," she said.

He smiled.

"Probably."

* * *

And a week later, Brass, smug and on the verge of gleeful laughter, to Catherine as they wandered the dark facades of a deserted Old West Town:

_I know something a lot juicier than Grissom and Lady Heather._

* * *

And two weeks later, Grissom removing a camera bag from Sara's shoulder at a crime scene, sliding his hand down her arm because he thought they were being careful enough and he thought they were safe and because he was so in love with her he couldn't help it anymore.

* * *

And six weeks after that, Grissom, panicked and on the verge of sick hysteria and the closest he'd ever come to actually harming someone, _killing_ someone, to Natalie in the interrogation room:

_Stop it! Just stop this! Tell me where Sara is!_

* * *

_Fin._


End file.
